Now
that the dust has settled over the Gujarat elections, we can afford
to defy the pundits and admit that, even if Narendra Modi had lost
the last elections, it would not have made much difference to the
culture of Gujarat politics. Modi had already done his job. Most of
the state's urban middle class would have remained mired in its inane
versions of communalism and parochialism and the VHP and the Bajrang
Dal would have continued to set the tone of state politics. Forty
years of dedicated propaganda does pay dividends, electorally and
socially.

The Hindus
and the Muslims of the state — once bonded so conspicuously
by language, culture and commerce — have met the demands of
both V D Savarkar and M A Jinnah. They now face each other as two
hostile nations. The handful of Gujarati social and political activists
who resist the trend are seen not as dissenters but as treacherous
troublemakers who should be silenced by any means, including surveillance,
censorship and direct violence. As a result, Gujarati cities, particularly
its educational institutions are turning cultural deserts. Gujarat
has already disowned the Indian Constitution and the state apparatus
has adjusted to the change.

The Congress,
the main opposition party, has no effective leader. Nor does it represent
any threat to the mainstream politics of Gujarat. The days of grass-roots
leaders like Jhinabhai Darji are past and a large section of the party
now consists of Hindu nationalists. The national leadership of the
party does not have the courage to confront Modi over 2002, given
its abominable record of 1984.

The Left
is virtually non-existent in Gujarat. Whatever minor presence it once
had among intellectuals and trade unionists is now a vague memory.
The state has disowned Gandhi, too; Gandhian politics arouses derision
in middle-class Gujarat. Except for a few valiant old-timers, Gandhians
have made peace with their conscience by withdrawing from the public
domain. Gandhi himself has been given a saintly, Hindu nationalist
status and shelved. Even the Gujarati translations of his Complete
Works have been stealthily distorted to conform to the Hindu nationalist
agenda.

Gujarati
Muslims too are "adjusting" to their new station. Denied
justice and proper compensation, and as second-class citizens in their
home state, they have to depend on voluntary efforts and donor agencies.
The state's refusal to provide relief has been partly met by voluntary
groups having fundamentalist sympathies. They supply aid but insist
that the beneficiaries give up Gujarati and take to Urdu, adopt veil,
and send their children to madrassas. Events like the desecration
of Wali Gujarati's grave have pushed one of India's culturally richest,
most diverse, vernacular Islamic traditions to the wall. Future generations
will as gratefully acknowledge the sangh parivar's contribution to
the growth of radical Islam in India as this generation remembers
with gratitude the handsome contribution of Rajiv Gandhi and his cohorts
to Sikh militancy.

The secularist
dogma of many fighting the sangh parivar has not helped matters. Even
those who have benefited from secular lawyers and activists relate
to secular ideologies instrumentally. They neither understand them
nor respect them. The victims still derive solace from their religions
and, when under attack, they cling more passionately to faith. Indeed,
shallow ideologies of secularism have simultaneously broken the back
of Gandhism and discouraged the emergence of figures like Ali Shariatis,
Desmond Tutus and the Dalai Lama — persons who can give suffering
a new voice audible to the poor and the powerless and make a creative
intervention possible from within worldviews accessible to the people.

Finally,
Gujarat's spectacular development has underwritten the de-civilising
process. One of the worst-kept secrets of our times is that dramatic
development almost always has an authoritarian tail. Post-World War
II Asia too has had its love affair with developmental despotism and
the censorship, surveillance and thought control that go with it.
The East Asian tigers have all been maneaters most of the time. Gujarat
has now chosen to join the pack. Development in the state now justifies
amorality, abridgement of freedom, and collapse of social ethics.

Is there
life after Modi? Is it possible to look beyond the 35 years of rioting
that began in 1969 and ended in 2002? Prima facie, the answer is "no".
We can only wait for a new generation that will, out of sheer self-interest
and tiredness, learn to live with each other. In the meanwhile, we
have to wait patiently but not passively to keep values alive, hoping
that at some point will come a modicum of remorse and a search for
atonement and that ultimately Gujarati traditions will triumph over
the culture of the state's urban middle class.

Recovering
Gujarat from its urban middle class will not be easy. The class has
found in militant religious nationalism a new self- respect and a
new virtual identity as a martial community, the way Bengali babus,
Maharashtrian Brahmins and Kashmiri Muslims at different times have
sought salvation in violence. In Gujarat this class has smelt blood,
for it does not have to do the killings but can plan, finance and
coordinate them with impunity. The actual killers are the lowest of
the low, mostly tribals and Dalits. The middle class controls the
media and education, which have become hate factories in recent times.
And they receive spirited support from most non-resident Indians who,
at a safe distance from India, can afford to be more nationalist,
bloodthirsty, and irresponsible.

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